This paper considers a cache-aided device-to-device (D2D) system where the users are equipped with cache memories of different size. During low traffic hours, a server places content in the users cache memories, knowing that the files requested by the users during peak traffic hours will have to be delivered by D2D transmissions only. The worst-case D2D delivery load is minimized by jointly designing the uncoded cache placement and linear coded D2D delivery. Next, a novel lower bound on the D2D delivery load with uncoded placement is proposed and used in explicitly characterizing the minimum D2D delivery load (MD2DDL) with uncoded placement for several cases of interest. In particular, having characterized the MD2DDL for equal cache sizes, it is shown that the same delivery load can be achieved in the network with users of unequal cache sizes, provided that the smallest cache size is greater than a certain threshold. The MD2DDL is also characterized in the small cache size regime, the large cache size regime, and the three-user case. Comparisons of the server-based delivery load with the D2D delivery load are provided. Finally, connections and mathematical parallels between cache-aided D2D systems and coded distributed computing (CDC) systems are discussed.
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